


Seas Between Us

by Magnetism_bind



Category: Black Sails
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Falling In Love, Happy Ending, Love Confessions, M/M, Military Backstory, New Year's Eve, New Year's Kiss, Polyamory, Separation Issues, Unresolved Emotional Tension
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-01-11
Updated: 2019-01-11
Packaged: 2019-10-08 01:46:39
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,238
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17377223
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Magnetism_bind/pseuds/Magnetism_bind
Summary: Written for the polyship prompt: silverflinthamilton-NYE kiss <3





	Seas Between Us

 

The party was too busy, too loud. Flint wasn’t even sure why he had agreed to go to a party on New Year’s Eve, completely daft idea, but Thomas had wanted to go, so here they were.

He looked around the room at the garish bright lights, reflecting against the wide windowpane looking out at the bright London night. He was glad to be back, he was, and yet…

Flint looked back at the window, and frowned for a moment. There in the reflection he thought he saw a face as familiar as his own staring back at him. It was a mirage. It was a ghost. It wasn’t real.

When he blinked however, the face was still there.

Flint turned around sharply.

There, amongst the rest of the partygoers, stood a man he never thought he would see again.

John Silver stood there, staring back at him with a look of utter shock.

What the fuck was Silver doing here of all places?

Automatically, Flint’s eyes went to the exits, checking all the areas where something could be hidden, where someone could be waiting.

He glanced back at Silver to see him just shaking his head, and walking away. For some reason that stung, seeing Silver just turn away like that.

Flint took half a step after him and then…paused. what was he even doing?

He looked around the room, saw Thomas deep in conversation with a fellow barrister. He could go over to them join the conversation, pretend he never saw Silver and the night would continue the way it was meant to.

Or he could go after Silver.

In the end he picked the third option and went out on the balcony for some fresh air. It was chilly, but not freezing for once. He’s known worse December nights. The view looked even more spectacular from here but for once Flint couldn’t concentrate on it. He was still debating how Silver had ended up at the party. Who did he know? Who invited him? Was it purely coincidence, or was this a ploy to get Flint to come back to the service? It seemed absurd, but he’d known higher-ups to employ tricks like that, anything to get a man back after he’d walked away. Why would they think Silver would be the right person to send for the job?

“Typical.” Silver’s voice floated over to him on the balcony. “You’re at a party. You’re retired, as far as I know, and you’re still checking the exits.”

Flint turned to see Silver leaning on the balcony. Silver turned and gazed back at him.

“What about you?”

Silver tilted his head. “What about me?” He sounded indifferent, and for a moment Flint was tempted to believe it. But he knew Silver better than that, even when he thought he had forgotten. But he knew Silver, down in his bones.

“Why are you here?”

Silver shrugged. “A mate invited me. It’s the new year…and.” He shrugged as if to say, ‘that’s it.’

“That’s all?” Flint said skeptically. How could it be that simple? He wasn’t even sure if he wanted it to be that simple. If Silver had just come because of that…then it meant. He didn’t want to think about what that meant.

“Jesus.” Silver started laughing. “You actually think I’m here to win you back. What a load of bullshit.”

“Why?”

“Well for starters, they wouldn’t send me.” Silver looked out at the city, away from Flint. Long enough for Flint to examine his profile. Silver’s hair was longer.  The ponytail suited him. There was a faint scar running along the collar of his shirt, up the back of his neck. It would have been hidden if he had had his hair down. Flint never would have known it existed.  And now he wanted to know the story behind it, how had it happened, what Silver had done in response. The scar was faded, it could have happened not long after.

Silver turned back to face him, and Flint had to force himself to stop from asking about the scar.

“Believe what you want.” Silver said finally. “I’m here as a civilian.”

Flint paused. “But they did want you to recruit me.” He knew he had guessed right about that.

At that Silver ducked his head and grinned faintly. “Yeah, they were willing to try anything back in the day.”

“Back in the day.” Flint echoed.

“Until I told them it was a waste of time.” Silver looked at him. “That once you made your mind up and turned your back on something, it was finished. Done. No forgiveness, no second chances.”

The words weren’t even bitter; they didn’t have to be. Flint heard them as from a far distance. Someone else was saying this. Someone not Silver. Someone he’d never kissed and held in his arms and almost…That was the thing about almost. It didn’t quite exist. Not truly. And being left in the void of non-existence was enough to forget it ever nearly happened at all.

“I imagine they didn’t take it well.”

“Not too well.” Silver admitted. “I was kept on desk duty for nearly a whole year because of that.”

“Why?”

“Every few weeks they trotted out the same request. Didn’t I want to get back in the field? Didn’t I think you would want to be out there again? Didn’t I want to talk to you? Wouldn’t I be willing to do that for queen and country?” Now there was bitterness in Silver’s voice.

It would have been idiotic to apologize for that. Something he’d had no hand in deliberately deciding, but Flint felt the urge all the same. The trouble was, once he started apologizing to Silver, he wasn’t sure he’d be able to stop.

“Anyway.” Silver straightened up. “Lovely to catch up and all that.”

He started for the door.

“Wait?” Flint didn’t mean it to sound so hesitant, or maybe he did. He just didn’t want to leave it there but he didn’t know what to say next. The words wouldn’t even come.

Silver kept going, leaving him alone on the balcony.

 

*  *  *

 

Flint went to stand by the bar and got a beer. He knew exactly where Silver was in the room. He didn’t even have to look for him. He wasn’t sure what that meant but, it meant something.

Thomas came to stand beside him.

“He’s the one.” Thomas said unnecessarily. They both knew exactly who the young man was.

Flint nodded all the same. “He’s the one.”

It felt like a million years ago. He had been undercover, deep undercover for two years, at that point not even sure if he would ever make it back to his normal life, and to Thomas.

It had been a life or death situation, and he had fallen for another man, had kissed another man, had thought he would die beside that man, and then at the last minute they’d been rescued, whisked off to hospital, and then…

And then Flint had simply walked away. Walked straight away and been reunited with Thomas. It was too hard to do anything else. He couldn’t explain it to himself, let alone to John.

He’d told Thomas when he’d gotten back of course, chopping the whole thing into tight neat little sentences, ‘It was only the once. I thought we were going to die.’ Thomas had been understanding, and none of it made it any better. It was over three years ago. It was done.

It  _should_  have been over and done with. Up to the point where he was faced with seeing Silver again for himself, he would have said that it was. It would have been a lie, but there you go.

Thomas simply nodded. “We need to talk.”

“It can wait till we go home.” Flint took a long drink of his beer.

Thomas leaned in close. “No. It can’t.”

Flint winced at the tone, (it wasn’t for nothing that Thomas was considered one of the most formidable barristers in London) but followed him down the hall to a quieter space.

The minute they could hear themselves think, Thomas turned abruptly to Flint.

“What are you thinking?” Thomas hissed. “Silver’s out there, in the same fucking room, and you’re not going to talk to him!”

“I did talk to him!” Flint hissed back. “There’s nothing to talk about. We should just go.”

“James, don’t be an idiot.” Thomas stepped back, pinching the bridge of his nose tiredly. “We both know how things have been the last three years.”

“And how have things been?” Flint snarled, and immediately he wished he could take it back.

Thomas folded his arms across his chest, just gazing at him. This was his best cross-examining look and every time he used it in a personal setting it either made Flint want to laugh or confess right away.

He didn’t say anything, a personal tactic of his own and finally Thomas simply sighed.

“Just…tell me you don’t miss him, and we’ll go home.”

It should have been easy. It would have been easy, but it wasn’t the truth. And he’d never lied to Thomas, and he didn’t plan to start now.

“I can’t.”

“I knew it.” Thomas murmured. He moved forward, putting his arms around Flint. A comforting, familiar embrace that Flint could have stayed forever in. He breathed in deep, closing his eyes.

“You’ve been pining over him for three years, James. Now,” Thomas’s lips grazed Flint’s ear.  “Go get him.”

“Thomas.”

“We’ll figure it out.” Thomas drew back, looking closely at him. “Okay? We’ll figure it out.”

Flint kissed him hard, a hundred memories flickering through his mind as he did, all precious. Somehow Thomas, because he was Thomas, knew he wanted a chance to make memories like that with Silver.

“Happy New Year, my love.” Thomas whispered, and Flint found himself smiling into the curve of his collar, before he finally let go, and went down the hall.

 

*  *  *

 

Flint moved through the crowd looking for Silver, and once again he found Silver near the widow, looking out at the balcony. He had his face tilted down, studying the cityscape below, his profile carved in stone.

Flint drew closer, unsure in this moment of actual confession, what he was supposed to say.

Silver looked up at his approach. “You again?”

“I’m sorry.”

“For what?” Silver murmured.

“For everything?” Flint offered. “I’m sorry I left you there in that hospital after everything that happened. After…” Even now he struggled to say the words. They had so nearly died there in that dank, dark cell. He had had to do something, to let Silver know how much their partnership had mattered to him over those last six months. He needed Silver to know how much that had meant. And the only way he could come up with was to kiss him.

“I know that’s not enough. I know it’s not nearly enough.”

“Well, at least you know that much.”

Flint’s eyes focused to a narrow single point, Silver’s mouth, turned into that charming smirk, the one he did when he wasn’t going to tell you what he really thought, which was all right because Flint already knew it.

He reached out, coiling one of Silver’s escaping curls around his finger, and Silver froze.

“I know I love you.”

The stunned look in Silver’s eyes told Flint he’d never have expected Flint to say that. Flint leaned in, sliding his hands up to cup Silver’s face. He stroked Silver’s face gently, letting himself take the time he’d never had before to touch the man he loved. Silver’s eyes closed under his touch, he looked exquisitely trapped by Flint’s touch.

“I love you.” Flint said again and pressed his mouth to Silver’s. It had been three years since the last and first time they kissed. Three years, two months and six days. Somewhere in there Flint might have calculated it down to the hours, but he didn’t want to think about the time spent apart now, not when there was no distance between them at all.

The firm pressure of Flint’s lips and the answering intensity in Silver’s, the endless yearning passing like a current between their bodies, was as ancient and enduring as the sea itself.

Silver finally drew apart with a soft exhale. “Happy new year.” He mumbled and Flint was unable to keep from smiling.

“Come home with me tonight. Come home with me and Thomas.”

“Are you sure about that?”

Flint’s hands slid down to clasp the folds of Silver’s jacket, his thumb sliding along the crease tentatively, hopefully.

“Yeh, I’m sure.” He waited, still watching Silver’s face, waiting to hear confirmation before he released the breath he was holding.

“Alright.” Silver said. “Let’s go home.”

Memories start in the blink of an eye, imprints of lives that you carry forever. Flint knew that there would be more in the days to come. But for now, the things he knew he would remember always stood out amongst the blur of the party around them. Thomas standing by the door, waiting with his coat over his arm. The tinkle of glass around them and the muted laughter of the other guests. And the way Silver looked at him, slightly questioning, but following nonetheless, his hand on Flint’s arm, unwilling to lose hold of him again even for a second.

 


End file.
